Charm (belief)

“ There is no blessing more utterly valueless when its first charm has passed over and faded from the imagination, than mere personal beauty; where there is no intellect, no heart, no sweetness of temper, no cheering gaiety of spirit, no genius, talent, nor precious moral worth to enclose and preserve it from wearying the sense, and palling the affection. ”

“ There has ever been, in all ages, an extensive credulity with regard to the power of charm in the human eye and hand—particularly the latter, arising, or greatly strengthened, by its use in the act of blessing. ”

“ Every thing adds to the mystic charm which breathes o’er her character and person. Abstracted in her brilliant error, absorbed in the splendid illusion of her religious dreams, believing herself the purest incarnation of the purest spirit, her elevated soul dwells not on the sensible images by which she is surrounded, but is wholly fixed upon the heaven of her own creation; and her beauty, her enthusiasm, her graces, and her genius, alike capacitate her to propagate and support the errors of which she herself is the victim. ”

“ And charm—when pleasures lose the power to please!
Yes; let each rapture, dear to Nature, flee:
Close not the light of Fortune’s stormy sea—
Mirth, Music, Friendship, Love’s propitious smile,
Chase every care, and charm a little while,
Ecstatic throbs the fluttering heart employ,
And all her strings are harmonised to joy!—
But why so short is Love’s delighted hour?
Why fades the dew on Beauty’s sweetest flower?
Why can no hymnèd charm of music heal
The sleepless woes impassioned spirits feel?
Can Fancy’s fairy hands no veil create,
To hide the sad realities of fate?—
No! ”

“ Then all our material anxieties will be gone.... And yet there is a great charm about this material life ... if we forget all wretchedness for a moment. A spell of charm comes to everybody: I believe that mine has come. ”

“ The charm for me—a charm sometimes pleasurable, but sometimes also painful, like the imperious necessity which we sometimes feel to see again and examine, seemingly uselessly, some horrible evil—the charm, I mean the involuntary compulsion of attention, has often been as great in following the vicissitudes of a mere artistic item, like the Carolingian stories or the bucolic element, as it has been in looking on at the dissolution of moral and social elements. ”

“ that any extraordinary degree of beauty in man or woman involves a moral charm. ”

“ When we seek to analyze this charm, we are left with the suspicion that, after we have pointed out many of its elements, such as humor, vivacity, kindliness, sententiousness, and the like, there are as many others, equally potent but more subtle, that escape us altogether. So we turn the hackneyed saying into "the charm is the man," and contentedly exchange analysis for enjoyment. ”

“ A gift of more value than beauty, is charm, which in a measure is another word for sympathy, or the power to put yourself in the place of others; to be interested in whatever interests them, so as to be pleasing to them, if possible, but not to occupy your thoughts in futilely wondering what they think about you. ”

“ The physical charm was gone, but other charm was present—that blending of kindness and power which wins men's hearts, if it does not stir their pulses, gave her a dominating personality, and made the circle of her influence exactly as large as the circle of her acquaintance. ”

“ This unexpected encounter between the accident of nature and the necessity of reason awakens in us a sentiment of joyous approval (contentment) which calms the senses, but which animates and occupies the mind, and it results necessarily that we are attracted by a charm towards the sensuous object. It is this attraction which we call kindliness, or love—a sentiment inseparable from grace and beauty. ”

“ Charm, when it takes its rise in the heart, leaves deep and lasting traces; that which is merely a product of art, or of eloquence, has only a passing power; it produces its immediate effect, and that is all. But how many philosophers are there in life who are able to distinguish the difference? ”

“ Charm. The circling charm is not merely the gold railing upon which she leans, but the magical limits of heaven itself which holds the souls back. She cannot pass beyond them. Otherwise her wish would take her back to this world to watch by her living lover. But only the angels, who are the messengers of heaven, can go beyond the boundaries. ”

“ There is for me a singular charm in confidences so vague, and yet so exact, made to an unknown individual, who appreciates the state of my heart with such infinite delicacy. I have been struck with what you tell me as to the happiness of loving even without hope, even as one loves God for God's sake, and of finding in the sole devotion to the adored object a pure and unutterable felicity. ”

“ Mortal charm shall fade away, roses shall give way to thorns, and beauty and youth shall live their day and be no more. But that which eternally endureth is the Beauty of the True One, for its splendour perisheth not and its glory lasteth for ever; its charm is all-powerful and its attraction infinite. ”

“ This, however, is not possible with things which are evident, and beauty which is incontestable. Charm, perhaps, is a better name for the esoteric and paradoxical beauty, which escapes the vulgar, and appeals to our dreamy, meditative side. ”

“ It is beauty that rather makes the heart ache, and the charm of the Steps from above is something that you can bear better if you are very, very worthy, or have the conceit of feeling yourself so. It is a charm that imparts itself more in detail and is less exclusively the effect of perpetual sunset. ”

“ It is what diffuses an ineffable grace over every look, every motion, every sentence you utter. It gives that charm to beauty, without which it generally fails to please. It is partly a personal quality, in which respect it is the gift of nature ”

“ The charm, then, of what is classical in art or literature is that of the well-known tale, to which we can nevertheless listen over and over again, because it is told so well. To the absolute beauty of its form is added the accidental, tranquil charm of familiarity. ”

“ Physically they may not attract us; though, such is the potency of Charm, that those we like we very soon begin to admire. Which is a blessing without the least disguise, since it enables those who have neither youth nor beauty nor wealth to recommend them to find friendship and love nevertheless. Charm is, as it were, the passion of a “soul”—a passion in which there is nothing physical, but rather a mental and spiritual elation overwhelming the simple “call of the flesh.” Thus real Charm is ageless, because it can triumph even over physical decay. The Charm of Innocence ”

“ Is there any one who would like to be beautiful in face and at the same time to have its charm spoilt by a beast-like body and fearful talons? Now the form of virtues is so wonderful and glorious, and especially the beauty of wisdom, as the whole of the Scriptures tell us. ”

“ "Believe me, there is none fraught with such deep, such vital interest. If you talk, indeed, of the capricious inclination awakened by the mere charm of perishable beauty, I grant it to be idle in the extreme; but that love which springs from the concordant sympathies of virtuous hearts; that love which is awakened by the perception of moral excellence, and fed by meditation on intellectual as well as personal beauty; that is a passion which refines and ennobles the human heart. ”

“ Gladness and beauty are its just inheritance,—the beauty thou hast counted for romance:
And guardian spirits weep that selfishness and sorrow should destroy it.
Thou hast seen the natural blessing marred into a curse by man;
Come then, in favour will I show thee the proper excellence of life.
Keep thou purity, and watch against suspicion,—love shall never perish;
Guard thine innocency spotless, and the buoyancy of childhood shall remain.
Sweet ideals feed the soul, thoughts of loveliness delight it,
The chivalrous affection of uncalculating youth lacketh not honourable wisdom. ”

“ Beauty is like a wonderful jewel; but Charm, if I may refer to it in metaphor, resembles an ideal home. And who would not rather pawn their jewellery than break up a happy domesticity? It is perhaps this feeling which Charm gives us of being perfectly “at home” that is its most precious possession. So, may be, it is really the one word we give to that quality of the mind and heart which mingles both sympathy and understanding in equal quantities. ”

“ In them, the latent consciousness of beauty, the charm of an existence that is opening in the fulness of its attractions, the becoming loveliness of innocence and youth, the simple cheerfulness of inexperience, lead to a modest and decorous display. ”

“ A charm, however, which one only recognises when it has been pointed out to one, is a charm of which one had better not speak. I will only say, in fact, that I am attracted as much as repelled. The man himself excites my curiosity. ”

“ To see these beauties, they must be contemplated by the faculty our soul has received; then, while contemplating them, we shall experience far more pleasure, astonishment and admiration, than in contemplation of the sense-beauties, because we will have the intuition of veritable beauties. The sentiments inspired by beauty are admiration, a gentle charm, desire, love, and a pleasurable impulse. ”

“ Is there, and can there be, a perpetuity in mortal charms without the recognition or the supposition of a moral beauty connected with them, which alone is pure and imperishable, and which alone creates the sacred ecstasy that revels in the enjoyment of what is divine, or what is supposed to be divine, not in man, but in the conceptions of man,--the ever-blazing glories of goodness or of truth which the excited soul doth see in the eyes and expression of the adored image? ”

“ But 'tis that, through them, all that is most refined, most excellent and noble, in our mental and moral nature, may be led through their loveliness, as through a glorious archway, to the source of all beauty and all goodness. It is that by them our perceptions of truth may be made more vivid, our love of loveliness increased, our intellect refined and elevated, our nature softened, our memory stored with images of brightness, which, like glorious reflections, falling again upon our souls, may tend to keep alive in them the knowledge of, and the desire after, what is true, and fair, and noble. ”

“ Real Charm is something much more subtle than any of these things—more subtle, yet more potent. In fact, no one may pride themselves on the possession of Charm until Time has robbed them of all those “minor beauties.” Indeed, if I were asked to explain Charm—and in thus being asked I should be faced by the difficulty of explaining the well-nigh inexplicable—I should sum it up as a kind of super-intelligence of the “soul,” an intelligence which combines the wisdom of the Heart with the wisdom of the World, the Wisdom of the Serpent with some of the guileless optimism of the Dove ”

“ Thus do I, enamored of qualities and perfections which exist only in my own thought, continually cheat and delude myself into the belief that a congenial spirit has been found, when some trivial incident breaks the spell—the charms I loved glide back to my own soul, and the charmer, unconscious of change in himself, wonders what has wrought so sudden an alteration in me. ”

“ This charm is it which gives the whole vitality to home,—this mingling of the temperaments of youth and manhood and deep age, blending hopes of the future with memories of the past, and making of every heart a portion of one human biography, in which many are sharers. ”

“ Its graceful purpose is to exhibit an incident in the substance of an emotion, to communicate wisdom in the form of sentiment; it is the refracted gleam of some wandering ray from the fair orb of moral truth, which glancing against some occurrence in common life, is surprised into a smile of quick-darting, many colored beauty; it is the airy ripple that is thrown up when the current of feeling in human hearts accidentally encounters the current of thought and bubbles forth with a gentle fret of sparkling foam. ”

“ Charm is, where it exists, an intrinsic and ultimate quality; it makes our actions, persons, life, significant and desirable, apart from anything they may lead to, or any use to which they can be put. ”

“ Their charm—for a charm, we trust, they will have to a considerable number of readers—arises simply from the truth with which they seize, and the happy expression in which they embody, the spirit of the spot ”

“ O precious pearl of the sea of life, chosen model of the beauty of virtues! practise modesty, have always a dervish’s heart. Content thyself with little, practise humility: shoot forth roots in the garden-plot of the roses of prosperity. Mildness, politeness, and good deeds will win to thee all unprejudiced men. Is it fitting for good-nature to knit the brow and contract the forehead? Kindness and urbanity of character brighten the mirror of the heart. As truly as a smiling countenance is an indication of the mercy of God, so is a sullen face a cause for reprobation. ”

“ That these vain joys, in which their wills consume Such powers of wit and soul as are of force To raise their beings to eternity, May be converted on works fitting men: And, for the practice of a forced look, An antic gesture, or a fustian phrase, Study the native frame of a true heart, An inward comeliness of bounty, knowledge, And spirit that may conform them actually To God's high figures, which they have in power; Which to neglect for a self-loving neatness, Is sacrilege of an unpardon'd greatness. ”